Inspirations post - Miss Miller

Before creating our thriller we need inspirations to guide us, and give us ideas. Inspirations can be used as springboards for ideas we can work around and expand on with our own twists.  Inspirations for our thriller clips can be taken from other thriller films, thriller trailers or even just films in general. Lighting, sounds, scenery etc can all be taken as inspiration from films.

When deciding on my individual narrative, I reflected on thriller films I had previously watched and thought about what ideas I could take from them. The first film that came to mind and inspired me with my underwater scene idea was 'The Orphan'. This film consists of an underwater fight scene betweem a killer and a victim, we included this in our openeing scene as when watching the struggle of the victim whilst getting attacked by the killer, it creates a suspenseful and tense atmosphere and left me feeling on edge. In 'The Orphan' the underwater scene is set in a froken over lake which gives a more dangerous feel to it as there is less chance of escape. However, when filming our opening scene we could not use the same idea due to the dangers, instead we gave the illusion that they are underwater in a lake when really we will be filming in a swimming pool. When creating a film, and there is an underwater or water scene the actors are usually not in the actual place they appear to be, instead they use plastic pools/swimming pools. An example of this is from the film 'Titanic' who used a plastic/paddling pool in the scene of Jack and Rose after the Titanic had sunk. This assisted us in creating our underwater scene as we know it can be pulled off and look realistic if not filmed in the actual lake/sea/river which made us confident in continuing and including the idea.

 

Planning Group Storyboards - Miss Miller

The purpose of a group storyboard is for our group to come together and combine each others ideas, helping us to create our final piece. This will allow us to improve on any ideas with other suggestions made by different members of the group that they came up with in their individual storyboard.

Inspirations were taken within our group such as point of view shots which is included in Deanna's individual storyboard where both me and Lilian agreed it was a very good idea and included it in our group storyboard. We came to the conclusion that this was effective as it allows the audience to feel what the character is feeling leaving them to sympathize for them and feel on edge being in their shoes and current situation.

When comparing and contrasting our individual storyboards together we discovered that me and Deanna had both included a parallel diegetic sound of leaves crunching beneath the little girls feet as she walks.

Planning characters representation - Miss Georgiou

The representation of characters is how someone is presented to an audience, how the audience judge someone by looking at their clothing, background and attitudes. In our thriller clip we will be using our characters to give the audience a feel of what the film is about by the way they present themselves.

In our group narrative opening scene we have 3 different characters, two of whom are played as the same characters but the audience would be unaware of this until the end, therefore could both be played by the same person. Our characters are: 

The little sister:

Name: Annie

Age: 10

Gender: Female, females are generally used as the victim in thrillers.

Race: Mixed race 

Background: Close relationship to her big sister, Ayesha. Their close bond will be portrayed through the flashbacks of happy memories between the two of them. In the flashbacks the girls are shown walking in the forest. Also, we see the little girl, Annie walking through the forest by herself, trying to uncover the events which happened which the viewers do not know about yet.

Purpose: She is going to be playing the victim. She will be portrayed as being innocent through her body language and facial expressions making her look sad and lonely.

How will the character appeal to an audience? The little girl will come across as lonely, confused and sad which will lead the audience into believing she is innocent and so may be the victim. They will therefore sympathise for her, meaning they are emotionally connected to her within the clip.

The Older Sister - 
Name - Ayesha
Age - 16
Gender - Female
Race - Mixed race

Background - She is the older sister to the previous character called Annie. They are very close which will be shown through the flashbacks in the clip. During the narrative, they go for a walk in the forest which is shown through the flashbacks. She is only seen in the flashbacks.

Purpose to narrative - This character will help to confuse the audience. They will begin liking her as she is close with her sister, but as the story develops and we discover that she may be the killer, the viewers may feel a sense of hatred or anger towards her due to the betrayal towards her sister. She is used to help create an enigma which is conventional to thrillers as it leaves the audience unsure of what has happened and so they question it and continue to watch to see what happens.

Killer - 
Name - Unknown / Ayesha?
Age - Unknown / 16?
Gender - Unknown / Female?
Race - Unknown / Mixed Race?

Background - Unknown - The killer could possibly be the older sister which would mean she is close to the younger sister as stated above. Or, if it is not the older sister then the audience do not know who he/she is as his/her identity is kept hidden. This creates an enigma which is very conventional to the thriller genre as it makes them eager to know who the killer is which keeps them engaged with the clip.

Purpose to narrative - The audience should react to the killer in a negative way. He/she should make them feel uncomfortable and should be responsible for creating all of the bad emotions the audience feel. This creates a huge shock when we find out that the killer could possibly be the older sister. The viewers should struggle to accept this as they thought they were two different people, which creates a sense of confusion.

Individual Storyboard - Miss Miller

When planning our group narrative, each of us created our own individual storyboards. By doing this it will assit us in planning what our final narrative expectations will look like. Because our group each made a seperate storyboard this will enable us to combine our ideas and begin to create a narrative we all agree on.

Storyboards are made during film making to give the film crew a visual idea of the scenes through illustrations, allowing them to plan for the film beforehand. Also, storyboards are time-consuming as film makers are prepared with a plan of the narrative, the director will know what to picture, therefore getting the film made quicker.

My storyboard consists of what camera angles we will be using in our clips, where each frame will be set, the lighting shown, what actors/actresses will be included, the sound used and what different editing techniques are going to be used, also a description of our narrative. These listed above will assist our group in what we must include within our frames, allowing us to get everything done quicker and more effectively as we would have a clear indicator on what we must aim for.

In my opinion, I feel my ideas within my storyboard will be useful in assisting my group with our thriller clip as we will be able do get it done as quickly and easily as possible. Each of my points has an in-depth, detailed description of what must be done.

*Add storyboard pictures here*

Target Audience Results - Miss Miller

From this pie chart we can see that the majority of people we questioned were female, therefore our thriller may not be reliable as females generally have different opinions on thriller films. By having a bigger female percentage, this does not allow us to see a wide range of perspectives, as males may have different expectations of thrillers.

When asking people the question above about sound, we discovered that each option of the question was selected and favoured by people highly. Tension building was the most popular as expected as thrillers are expected to leave you feeling tense. Silence followed closely with most picked as this is also a tension building sound. Therefore, when making my thriller I will focus most closely on tension building sound, and silence. However, all the options of sound were selected showing that all these types of sounds are important when making a thriller. 

When creating our question for age certificates we thought that most thriller films are either a 15 or 18 due to the scary content. The people we asked agreed with us as no-one selected a 12 certificate. Both 15, and 18 had a high percentage as thrillers are seen to be inappropriate for children in the publics opinion. However, the 15 age certificate was 20% higher than 18, therefore our group will certificate our thriller as a 15.

Our pie chart results of this question shows that 50% of the people we questioned watch thrillers as family and friends have recommended it to them, this would be helpful in assisting us with our thriller as we wont be using advertisement nor posters therefore word of mouth would be the option. Adverts were also highly favoured with 40% of people selecting it, where as posters were a small 10%.

The next question we asked was intended to allow us to briefly think about how the film would continue and what we wanted to give away in the first few minutes of the clip. To decide on a storyline we thought it would be best to decide whether or not the film could continue and so wanted to make the narrative as interesting as possible, so more films could be made.

Planning Mise-en-scene - Miss Georgiou

Mise-en-scene is important within a thriller film because it's the arrangement of scenery and properties to represent the place where a play or a movie is enacted. Without mise-en-scene there would be nothing to make the film out of.

The mise-en-scene of my thriller includes the 5 different elements, which are:

• Setting & Iconography

• Costume, hair & make-up

• Facial expressions & body language

• Lighting & colour

• The positioning of characters/objects within the frame. 

Setting-

Our group narrative consists of an underwater scene, therefore we thought it would be well-suited for it to take place in a river. Our group then decided to base the rest of the clips scenery around this and thought it would be relevant to film in a forest as rivers are found by forests. Also, forests are conventional to the thriller genre as it is an isolated area in which a victim would be unable to escape a killer, this would make the audience empathize towards the victim as they would have no where are no one to run to. The setting creates a relationship between the audience and the clip as they are left feeling tense and worried due to the confined and dangerous surroundings, this draws them into the current situation going on in the clip and focuses their attention on any potential negative outcomes.

Iconography - 

The iconography we decided to use was a scarf and a knife. The scarf belongs to the victim/little sister which would be used as an effect of a distorted past memory. The scarf will be placed on a tree portraying that it has been misplaced which adds a sense of enigma for the audience as they are left wondering why it has been left there or what has occurred in that particular area. The knife is used to cut the victims face, but also acts as the murder weapon. This is conventional to the thriller genre as knives are typically used as the murder weapon in thriller films. The use of the knife would make the audience feel on edge as they know the victim is in serious danger. This builds a relationship between the audience and the victim as they are sympathizing and worried for their life, it also connects the audience to the killer as they are left in hope that they do not use the knife on the little girl to take her life.

Costume - 

Our group decided for the female characters in our thriller clip to be dressed in everyday,casual clothing for the audience to relate and connect more to them. In addition, the use of casual clothing is misleading towards the audience as our clip has a twist leaving the audience shocked and surprised which is conventional the thriller genre, this is due to the fact the female characters are portrayed to be normal everyday girls through their use of clothing. When portraying the killer in our clip we want to keep his identity hidden as this is very conventional to thrillers. Because of this we decided that he should be wearing black, by wearing black the audience would associate the killer to have a dark, creepy personality, this would make the audience feel on edge as they know the killer is capable of anything as he has no sympathy he's just dark. The killer is not going to be seen clearly within our thriller clip therefore it doesn't matter too much what we show them wearing as long as the clothing is seen to be dark and basic. Keeping it basic doesn't give too much away about the character therefore making the clip more tense as the audience will have the fear of the unexpected.

Hair & Make-up - 
Similar to the costumes the girls are to be portrayed as everyday young female citizens, therefore we decided their make-up and hair should be casual and basic. During the underwater scene we decided the hair of the girl should flow outwards and spread out to emphasize the reality that she is underwater drowning, making it more tense for the audience to witness. The cut on the little girls face shown in the reflection would come under make-up as we would be using false blood for it. Blood is typically used in thrillers and is conventional to the thriller genre as it makes the audience aware that an attack has just taken place, making them sympathize for the little girl as they know she is in danger. The audiences concerns for the little girl connects them emotionally to her and her safety.

Facial Expressions & Body language - 

Whilst the little girl is walking through the forest her facial expressions should be upset and lonely, to show this we would have her put her head down to emphasize her sadness. We also wanted to portray confusion through her facial expressions as she is unaware of her surroundings this would be effective as it would reflect the audiences confusion as to what is going on at the time. This is conventional to the thriller genre as is adds a sense of enigma making the audience feel on edge as they would have the fear of the unexpected. On the other hand, we are also going to be showing happy emotions on the female characters faces and body language of playing and skipping around due to the flashbacks that occur within our thriller clip. The idea of the flashbacks is to show the little girl remembering happy events and memories of the past, experiencing 'Nostalgia' which then lead up to her death.

Lighting & Colour - 
We decided that the scenery of the forest should be low-key lighting whilst the little girl is walking through, this is to limit the detail that can be seen, creating a mysterious atmosphere. This is conventional to thrillers as it builds tension for the audience as it is unclear for them to see what is happening. The dark and dull lighting could be used to represent the mood or emotional state of the little girl as she is currently feeling sad and lonely, this connects the audience to how she is feeling making them sympathize towards her.During and in the transition between normality and the flashback, the lighting needs to help show the difference clearly. It can do this by the lighting being a lot brighter in the flashbacks than in the reality parts. The colors in the flashbacks will be bright conveying happiness, the colours in the present tense will be dull and dark to convey sadness and confusion. The colour contrasting is conventional to thriller genres as it lets the audience in on the different emotions the characters are feeling, connecting them to them, this is effective as the audience find themselves feeling the emotion the character is currently experiencing, this builds a relationship between the audience and the characters.

Positioning of characters/objects within the frame - 

When discussing the positioning of the characters, we decided that whilst the little girl is walking through the forest we should have a long-shot of her and her surroundings. By showing the little girl within the surroundings we wanted to make her look small compared to them to convey her vulnerability. This is conventional to the thriller genre as victims are shown to look vulnerable and small - beneath their killers. We intend to do this with a high-shot of the little girl whilst zooming out on her to emphasize her timidness. This will connect the audience to the little girl as they would sense how defenseless she is and would empathize for her. For the killer, we wanted to position the camera as if it were the killers eyeshot and point of view, we would have them looking down at the victims dead body whilst their feet were in the shot to make it clear the image is through the killers eyes. This would connect the audience to the killer as they are his eyes and are left in his position looking down on a little girls dead body, making them feel slightly horrified at the sight.

Preliminary task - Miss Georgiou

To show our understanding of cinematography and to get some experience with using the camera and tripod, we had to create a short clip, no longer that one minute in length. This short clip was a continuity task involving filming and editing our footage afterwards.

In this short clip, we had to demonstrate several different camera angles whilst using dialogue. The cinematography we tried to incorporate were a high angle, Zooming in, Over the shoulder angle, close up and panning.

When creating the preliminary task, we learnt how to use a camera and tripod, as well as executing the different camera angles. When filming, we found some cinematography easier to produce than other.

 For example, the zoom button on our camera was broken and so this meant we couldn't complete any zooming in or zooming out shots. To overcome this we decided that the group member that was filming had to quietly walk forwards to make it look like we were zooming in, which is why when watching our preliminary task, it looks like it was a handheld piece of footage.

Another part we struggled on was deciding what to say during the conversation that was being filmed. We wasted quite a lot of time on this which effected how long we had to edit the footage in class. In the end, we decided it didn't matter what was being said as the task was to show our understanding of cinematography, and so we roughly planned what camera angles we wanted to use and then she filmed us having a normal conversation.


The preliminary task will assist me when planning and creating my own thriller film as it told me what not to do. Firstly, we took too long filming a short amount of footage, and so we did not have enough time to edit the footage in class. Consequently, we had to come back in our free time to edit the footage. This was helpful as it told me that we need to ensure we plan everything carefully and in detail to make sure we can film and edit everything within the deadline.